Summer Reading

The school holidays have started. I don’t expect to do much writing, but I plan to do plenty of reading. First on the list is my book group’s big read, Middlemarch, and I am so much looking forward to it. It’s a long time since I have reread it from cover to cover, and I’ll be reporting on that.

Then there are the crime novels that I’ll be tackling either at home or abroad. I am a big fan of Martin Cruz Smith, so I’ll be packing his new novel, Tatiana. I recently reviewed The Hunting Dogs by Jorn Lier Horst, which I loved, so I’ll follow that up with Closed for the Winter, the only one in English that I haven’t yet read. I plan to try Johan’s Theorin’s The Quarry. He comes recommended by Barry Forshaw in his guide, Nordic Noir, and the novel’s set on the Swedish island of Oland, which I’ve visited on the Swedish trip I recently wrote about here: http://somethingisgoingtohappen.net/ and http://bit.ly/1jRNrnk

We’ll be in northern France part of the time, so I’ll be brushing up my French with Simenon’s Maigret et l’inspecteur Malgracieux and maybe Alphonse Daudet’s Lettres de mon moulin. Adrian Magson’s series featuring Inspector Lucas Rocco are set in 1960s Picardy and I’ve downloaded the latest, Death at the Clos du Lac.

I’ll be blogging, but maybe not quite as regularly as usual. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, I’ve been rash enough to agree to list my five favourite Agatha Christie’s after being challenged by Moira at ClothesinBooks. She’s doing the same and we’ll both be posting our lists on Thursday.